Although the leaders of the SCO member-states emphasised that the Qingdao summit will be a new departure point for the organisation and agreed in principle that there is a need for a roadmap of actions, it still remains unclear what the SCO can really offer.

Beijing has long refrained from engaging militarily beyond its borders. However, as some recent reports suggest, this situation may soon change. Ferghana News reported that China will build a military base in the northern province of Afghanistan.

The Chinese government hopes to create “a sincerity culture” and raise “honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society” through the Social Credit System. However, this system may evolve into a large-scale political tool. The system can be used to ensure citizens, private companies, public officials, and state institutions abide by the rules.

Despite the uncharacteristic competitiveness of the upcoming Kyrgyz presidential election, both candidates have similar foreign policy goals: rapprochement with Russia and deepening financial ties to China.

It has been four years since One Belt, One Road (OBOR) was first announced, but the prospects of OBOR’s impact on Central Asia remain unclear, while the commitment of Beijing to invest $40 billion into Central Asia’s poor and deteriorating infrastructure have not materialized.The diversity of views on OBOR demonstrate that OBOR is far from being a complete product. It is an evolving concept, which is yet to be finalized. Accordingly, in the context of Central Asia, it remains unclear what form OBOR will take. Is OBOR a qualitatively new endeavour to be implemented in the region? Or, is it simply a rebranded form of Chinese pre-existing infrastructure projects, unified under the aegis of the Silk Road discourses?

Despite the benevolent ambitions of building a “community of common destiny,” the question remains open to what extent it is an attainable goal or rather a utopian objective. China shares border with 14 states all of which are very different: in geographic size, economic development, socio-political cohesion and degree of influence in the international arena.

Skeptics of land reforms throughout the world fear that land redistribution in developing states may further victimize those who are already more disadvantaged and marginalized. And recent unrests in Kazakhstan due to Chinese investors demonstrate such concerns, highlighting land reform to be a complicated process with the potential of igniting social movements and mass mobilizations.

At this stage, it will be premature to immediately associate the blast at the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek with the larger context of ethnic separatism in China or Islamic radicalism in Central Asia, despite the high likelihood that Uighur separatist groups will be blamed for the attack in Kyrgyzstan. In general, this blast comes as an unpleasant and unexpected surprise both for Kyrgyzstan and China.

Incomprehension of the Chinese foreign policy goals in Central Asia by local elites, in addition to a historic legacy of confrontation between the Chinese empire and Central Asian nomadic tribes, serves as a fertile ground for the popularisation of speculative knowledge. As a result, Chinese initiatives in the region are clouded by rumours and conspiracies.